As always we open in the 2070s, and Kiera and her partner Elena (Caitlin Cromwell) are on riot patrol, and find out that Liber8 is stealing food from a company Piron, that was supposed to be distributing it, but instead was stockpiling it (that sounds kind of familiar)

Back in 2012, Kiera and Carlos arrive at an Occupy demonstration in front of a financial institute named Exotrol (though to me that sounds more like an oil company…).

And in a brief moment, when Kiera sees her first ever horse (apparently it’s a long story about why they don’t exist in her time), the demonstration gets violent, provoked by agitators within the crows who are there doing Liber8’s bidding… including Alec’s step-brother Julian (Richard Harmon).

Using the riot as cover, Travis (Roger Cross), who is inside the building, kills the CEO, Henrietta Sherman’s (Marilyn Norry) bodyguards and kidnaps her.

What follows is a chess game Kagame (Tony Amendola) plays against not only against Kiera but the public in general. Liber8 releases a ransom demand for the release of Sherman, $20 million. When the board approve it, they’re told via mass texts to give it the people protesting in front of Exotrol.

From there, they reneg on their promise to release Sherman, and instead launch a website, where you can vote whether or not she lives or dies.

Kiera turns to Kellog (Stephen Lobo) for help, and he basically gives her the most basic motive, follow the money, and who gains from the removal of Sherman.

He tells her this while he’s snooping about through her apartment, and finds her hidden tech, but leaves it, only reclaiming the piece of The Device she removed from Evidence.

As the people vote on whether Sherman lives or dies, Kagame chats with Sonya (Lexa Doig) about the past, and future history, talking about the corporate bailout and the fact that these businesses, that should never received that money in the first place, then paid out huge bonuses to themselves while still taking all they could from the people.

Once again, as much as I like Kiera, I still have to agree with Liber8’s politics, just not their tactics.

With Alec’s aid, the cops track down Liber8’s location, but arrive too late to catch the group, but they do find Sherman strapped to a chair, and rigged to blow.

Kiera finds a message left by Liber8, “The truth will set her free.” She bluffs Sherman that she can’t defuse it in time. The only way for Sherman to survive is to admit some secret she’s keeping.

As time ticks down, she does… She and the board lied about the pension fund being cleared out by the economy, they had been in fact dipping into it over the years until it was empty, stealing from their own employees (something else that sounds very familiar).

Overall, I felt this was a really solid episode, though I had a problem with a couple of moments, the biggest of which was the fact that in a fight, Kiera needed Carlos to come to her rescue, and I swear, it looks like she flinched, afraid of being hit. The Kiera I’ve grown to adore over the last few episodes, would probably have taken the hit, and then kicked the guy’s ass all the harder.

I did like the fact that they took a look at the Occupy movement as well as the concept of business transparency.

We also see a confrontation between Alec and Julian, as Alec revealed that Julian was at the riots to his father Roland (Michael Rogers). Sooner or later it’s not only gonna come to blows, it’s gonna put them on opposite sides of the fight I think.

Back in the 2070s, Kiera talks to Greg (John Reardon) about who watches the Corporate Government and his knowledge of Piron stockpiling food. He accuses her of beginning to think like one of the Liber8 terrorists.

But she obviously has her doubts about her own beliefs, which is interesting, as it should create some conflict for her character, between knowing what is legal and illegal and what is right.

And around Vancouver, and I’m sure the world Liber8 slogans are being spray-painted on walls.

While not the strongest episode to follow up episode 5 with, it still advanced our overall story, and gave us a little more future history. I just didn’t care for the fight sequence. Kiera does not need rescuing!

Post navigation

Portrayal of the Occupy movement here was rather poor. Basically someone hacks a sign to say ‘give the crowd tons of money or some person dies’ and the entire crowd is all into it and storms the gate to get the money. I mean… what kind of people do they think make up the Occupy movement? Ripped from the headlines is one thing. Ripped from the headlines and sh@t upon is quite another.

Well, without delving too deeply into politics, a thing I am loathe to discuss along with religion, I’m not sure what the best way would be to portray the Occupy movement. While I agree with the concept and the idea, its execution was poor, and even those who were protesting could neither agree on exactly what they were protesting (besides the 1%) nor did they offer a course of action on how to resolve it. I know several people who were involved who all told me conflicting things. Yes, I agree banks are bad, and all businesses need to have transparent business practices, and accountability not only to the shareholders but to the public at large, and I also agree that there needs to be a more balanced taxation system, not just shoveling it all onto the lower, and middle classes.
So I’m not sure you can say the movement was sh@t upon… I think that if I (and countless others) was in that situation and they were handing out $20 million to the public, I’d certainly want my share.
That in the end, was the least of my problems with the episode. My issue still remains the fact that Kiera, who is also ex-military, and a Protector, somehow was getting her butt kicked by another ex-mil type, and is now just a security chief.